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Every once in a while I switch the TV channel from Fox to CNBC to see what the liberals are saying. After listening awhile I get a deep sense of hopelessness and foreboding for our country. The most important thing for the left is giving money to people. They are happy to see the growth of food stamps, disability payments, housing subsidies, free healthcare and all the other welfare benefits. They utterly fail to see the damage it is doing to the recipients. Whole cities that once flourished have deteriorated into rotting eyesores populated with shambling hulks of chemically dependent drones. These people are no longer employable. They have become incompetent and helpless and the liberals can’t see that it’s their doing.

“I’ll tell you a little secret about gold and silver that no one knows. Gold and silver don’t go up because of “inflation” as “market experts” inform their viewers on T.V. What goes up because of inflation are the stock, bond and real estate markets. The “policy makers” wouldn’t have it any other way. What drives gold and silver higher is deflation in the stock, bond and real estate markets as wealth flees for its life from crashing market values in paper assets.” Mark J. Lundeen, Analyst

“As the Venezuelan government continues to starve its own people through regulations and kill for protesting their own starvation, the resolve of those living under the oppression of socialism seem to continue to harden. Venezuela destroyed its own economy with socialist policies.” Mac Slavo, Editor

“When things start going really bad, people are going to call and say, ‘You must save me. It’s Western civilization. It’s going to collapse.’ And the Fed, who is made up of bureaucrats and politicians, will say, ‘Well, we better do something.’ And they’ll try but it won’t work. It’ll cause some rallies but it won’t work this time.” Jim Rogers, Author

“CFTC investigators supposedly spent 5 years searching for illegal market manipulation, but somehow, managed to find nothing. Cheating became hard to ignore after Deutsche Bank turned over voice recordings and 350,000 pages of documents which revealed bank trading desks being run like the back office of a crooked casino.” Clint Siegner, Editor

“China's securities regulator said it will encourage wealth management firms to invest in commodity futures in a bid to promote its domestic derivatives industry and raise the amount of commodities in the nation's assets under management. The regulator will loosen restrictions that limit how commercial banks, insurance companies and pension funds invest in commodity futures.” Reuters

“No one cares when the party is still raging and investors, drunk with the liquor of loose money, are blind to the inevitable catastrophe that lies ahead.” Albert Edwards, Analyst

“‘Good’ economic news is bearish because it will keep the Fed on its announced course of reducing the size of the balance sheet. That’s what will generate the real pain in the markets. And that’s why you should begin to execute a plan of orderly exit now, before any panic begins.” Lee Adler, Economist

“The coming six month period and especially the autumn, is likely to contain a lot of shocks. The investment community is totally oblivious to the risks they are taking by having most of their money in assets that have reached stratospheric values whether it is the stock market at a 30 p/e or property prices at bubble values worldwide or bonds at zero percent. All these asset markets only have one way to go and that is massively down. Investors must not believe that they will be saved by central banks again. The world is past the point of being saved and must now suffer the consequences.” Egon von Greyerz, Analyst

June 23, 2017

“The alleged need for monetary central planning, progressive taxation and income redistribution, are mainly self-serving inventions, concoctions and lies. They are designated to keep the foot of the state firmly on the neck of free markets, free citizens and liberty.” David Stockman, Economist

“The U.S. and Europe intend to keep subsidizing green energy as long as the domestic voters give them permission to do so, because the whole point of being in office is to redirect resources to interest groups best able to reward politicians for doling out the goodies.” Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.,Author

“When share prices are low, as they were in the fall of 2008 into early 2009, actual risk is usually quite muted while perception of risk is very high. By contrast, when securities prices are high, as they are today, the perception of risk is muted, but the risks to investors are quite elevated.” Seth Klarman, Hedge Fund Manager

“The ballyhooed threat that global temperatures will soar if Al Gore and his anti-carbon Gestapo do not get their way is about as historically ignorant as it gets.” David Stockman, Economist

“If the left wins, America loses. And if America loses, evil will engulf the world.” Dennis Prager, Author

June 9, 2017

“When the majority of the people of any nation give up their inherited prerogative right to make their own way through struggle, history shows clearly that the entire nation is in a tailspin of decay that inevitably must end in extinction.” Napoleon Hill, Author

“A student at the University of Florida lost points on an essay assignment for his decision to use the word ‘man,’ instead of the word ‘humankind.’” Alicia Colon, Author

“The Wall Street Journal had an article on the blood bath in retail. Waves of store closings, collapsing sales; it read like news from the 1930’s. Yet the Dow Jones Retail Broadline Group ended the week at a new all-time high.” Mark Lundeen, Editor

“The left rules as a shadow government of judges and reporters, bureaucrats and activists. Its tactics range from riots in the streets to subversion in government agencies.” Daniel Greenfield, Author

“Slowing money supply and credit growth and historically extremely high stock market valuations far more often than not turn out to be uneasy bedfellows. In fact, usually the latter will eventually fall out of bed. Circumspection remains advisable.” Pater Tenebrarum, Editor

“The political and media hysteria surrounding the Trump administration lies somewhere on the repulsiveness scale between the Jacobin excesses of the French Revolution and the McCarthy era.” Ted Van Dyk, Author

“The longer a bull market exists, the more it is believed that it will last indefinitely.” Lance Roberts, Editor

“The left wing of American politics has indeed become unhinged and unstable. President Trump truly has turned these people absolutely mad.” Joey Clark, Editor

May 29, 2017

“We live in an age of asset bubbles rather than true economic growth.” Chris Whalen, Economist

“The American economy is now at a point where several dollars of additional credit is required to produce one dollar of GDP.” Egon von Greyerz, Editor

“Capitalism is the only thing that can save us. Socialism is the only thing that can destroy us.” James Cook, Author

“The price of silver, relative to gold, is hovering near a multi-year low at 75:1. Even though the price is 75:1, the new supply of silver is only 9:1. In theory, if the new metal supply is 9:1, then the price should be 9:1 (which would be a silver price of $136.67).” Simon Black, Editor

“In America alone, bad debt held by companies could reach $4 trillion, or almost a quarter of corporate assets considered. That debt could undermine financial stability if mishandled.” IMF

“At this stage of the cycle, setting new records is a reason for caution, not optimism.” Dr. Lacy Hunt, Analyst

“With the current expansion now in its 83rd month, it is more than 20 months longer than the average since the end of World War II.” Lance Roberts, Analyst

“To say that Baltimore is in a state of decline would be a major understatement. Everywhere you look there are abandoned buildings and homes, and as you drive through some of the worst areas you can actually see drug addicts just lying in the streets. Just like so many other communities all over this country, decades of liberal policies have taken a brutal toll, and now the city is just a rotting, decaying shell of the glorious metropolis that it once was.” Michael Snyder, Author

“The world economy now has $215 trillion of debt. This makes it extremely vulnerable to interest rate increases. The Fed will never be able to get far in its ‘tightening cycle’ before it turns around and offers more emergency funding.” Bill Bonner, Editor

“In an era when governments print unlimited amounts of money and expand credit ad infinitum, precious metals is the only asset that will maintain purchasing power and preserve wealth.” Egon von Greyerz, Analyst

“A fascinating report by the Devonshire Research Group finds that the accepted definition of inflation, or CPI, is dramatically understated for various reasons, both political and economic.” ZeroHedge

“In the very short time Donald Trump has been president, he is probably the most besieged leader since Abraham Lincoln presiding over a super polarized nation. This polarization is not based on the serious issue of slavery but on the lies and malicious machinations of a hostile opposition party and the lapdog media minions. They have successfully turned half this nation into blithering, infantile, angry non-thinkers who base their anger on faux news.” Alicia Colon, Author

May 10, 2017

“Acts of violence and physical intimidation aimed at conservatives on American campuses are growing – and college administrators, who sympathize with the progressive fascist lynch mobs doing the misdeeds, are generally fine with the mayhem.” Matthew Vadum, Author

“There is abundant evidence that borrowing and squandering immense sums has not boosted growth rates in a sustainable fashion – rather, the staggering debt loads are squeezing current spending and shackling future policy-makers with an ever-grimmer slate of self-reinforcing bad choices.” Charles Hugh Smith, Author

“We are basically borrowing our way to economic disaster.” David Stockman, Economist

“There’s hell to pay for 100 years of ever escalating financial insanity. Take it in stride. The downside is here and it’s not going away any time soon.” M. N. Gordon, Editor

“Thousands of new store doors opened and rents soared. This created a bubble, and like housing, that bubble has now burst.” Richard Hayne, CEO

“In the last few decades, over a couple of quadrillions of dollars of debt, unfunded liabilities and derivatives have been created out of thin air. Before this bubble period is over, those quadrillions of debts and liabilities will return to just air. And so will all the assets that were backed by this debt.” Egon von Greyerz, Economist

“What is evolving now regarding silver is one of the most dramatic situations in commodity market history. JP Morgan has got their way for six years and they are trying to keep their 16-trade winning streak going. There is SOMEONE going against them like never before. IF, and that is a big IF, these astounding new forces have tied up the market, you will see one of the swiftest commodity moves to all-time highs ever.” Mark Gasparre, Analyst

“The bulls explain that traditional valuation metrics no longer apply to certain stocks. The longs are confident that everyone else who holds these stocks understands the dynamic and won’t sell either. With holders reluctant to sell, the stocks can only go up – seemingly to infinity and beyond. We have seen this before. There was no catalyst that we know of that burst the dot-com bubble in March 2000, and we don’t have a particular catalyst in mind here.” David Einhorn, Hedge Fund Manager

“When the silver manipulation ends, as it must and will, the price reset in silver to the upside will shock the world.” Theodore Butler, Analyst

“Every year, Portland, Oregon kicks off the city’s annual Rose Festival with a family-friendly parade. Except this year, there will be no parade. Organizers have cancelled the event amid threats of violence. According to The Washington Post, the reasoning behind the threats is outrage over the fact that the county’s Republican Party was given one of the nearly 100 spots in the parade.” Mac Slavo, Editor

“Most investors enter a market after a big rise and then often sit through a major part of the correction before they bail out. The best time to enter is when an investment is unloved and undervalued but few have the courage to do that. Instead they wait until the media start talking about it.” Egon von Greyerz, Analyst

“Both U.S. stocks and the U.S. dollar are well beyond sustainable levels.” John Williams, Economist

“Investors are facing record high stock valuations that are levitating on top of a record amount of margin debt. However, this equity bubble is being undermined by near-zero percent GDP growth, a tightening yield spread, tepid EPS growth, bank loan growth that is rolling over, a record-high total debt-to-GDP ratio and a Fed that suddenly wants to fight inflation. This means the market is overripe for a significant correction and investors would be wise to position their portfolios to protect and profit from the coming reality check.” Michael Pento, Author

“Hoodwinking Americans is part of the environmentalist agenda.” Walter Williams, Author

April 28, 2017

“The record of history is absolutely crystal clear. There is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.” Milton Friedman, Economist

“Since the low point in September 2015, commercial bankruptcies have soared 65%. The Fed’s monetary policies have purposefully encouraged businesses and consumers to borrow. But debt doesn’t just go away. It accumulates. By now, an increasing number of businesses and consumers are suffocating under this debt overhang in an economy that never developed the ‘escape velocity’ needed – and hyped by Wall Street for years – to outgrow this debt. Rising bankruptcies are a turning point in the ‘credit cycle.’” Wolf Richter, Editor

“The Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama era had much in common, and it was not free market principles. It was an era of unrestrained crony capitalism, in which special interests formed stronger and stronger alliances with government in order to secure economic monopolies and other privileges.” Hunter Lewis, Economist

“Why are some people fixated on gold? The huge chasm that divides those of us who the world calls ‘gold bugs’ and those of us who think little of gold and silver is their awareness of the history of money.” Mark J. Lundeen, Editor

“Interest rates can never rise because rolling over this much debt at historically-normal rates would blow up the budgets of both the developed and developing worlds. The only solution – if you can call it that – is massive currency devaluation to make these debts manageable. Since the debt binge has apparently gone parabolic, the reckoning is fairly close at hand. 2018 might be one for the history books.” John Rubino, Editor

“The dollar is living on borrowed time, literally. And so we just don’t know. It’s like a bomb with a fuse, but we just don’t really know how long the fuse is.” Peter Schiff, Author

“I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a new sense of optimism that the whole issue of a silver manipulation is coming to a head.” Theodore Butler, Analyst

April 7, 2017

“Silver today can be purchased for less than half of what it sold for in 1953. And when one is buying something for investment purposes; cheap is good!” Mark J. Lundeen, Editor

“The more people who receive and come to depend on entitlements, the sooner society will collapse economically.” Dennis Prager, Author

“Socialism often leads to economic and societal collapse, hyperinflation, shortages, and shrinking personal freedom. This has happened most recently in Venezuela. The truth is, it can happen anywhere. The U.S. is not immune. In fact, it’s extremely vulnerable. Increasing socialism, bad financial decisions, and massive debt levels will cause another financial crisis sooner rather than later. We believe the coming crash is going to be much worse, much longer, and very different than what we saw in 2008 and 2009.” Jeff Thomas, Editor

“While there has been much touting of the strength of the consumer in recent years, it has been a credit-driven mirage. With income growth weak, debt levels elevated and rent and health care costs chipping away at disposable incomes, in order to make payments even remotely possible, terms are often stretched to 84 months.” Lance Roberts, Analyst

“The big N.Y. banks are counterparty to tens of trillions of interest rate derivatives, which only made them obscene profits as long as interest rates went down. But like T-bond yields, corporate and municipal bond yields bottomed last summer and are now rising. Not good for Wall Street! After a four-decade-long bull market, it’s time for Mr. Bear to make his presence felt in the fixed income market. Should bond yields return to where they were in 2008, I expect the big banks will once again come knocking on Congress’s door asking for another bailout. And for the same reason – their interest rate derivative positions are underwater by a few tens of trillions of dollars.” Mark J. Lundeen, Editor

“For those who are skeptical about North Korea’s capabilities, there is an excellent article presented by The Hill, entitled ‘How North Korea Could Kill 90 Percent of Americans.’ The article is authored by none other than R. James Woolsey, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, the Executive Director of the EMP Task Force.” Jeremiah Johnson, Author

“Our economy is awash in cheap money and financial bubbles that threaten to wipe out tens of trillions of dollars’ worth of savings, investments, and assets. Everyone can close their eyes and hum while they hope that everything is going to be just fine, but it won’t be.” Daniel Lang, Analyst

March 13, 2017

“Other than an ounce of silver, or digital computing power, what else is cheaper today than it was in January 1980? A tube of toothpaste? A gallon of gas? And the commercial and industrial uses for silver over the past decades have exploded, as its above ground inventories have been reduced from multi-billion to a few hundred million ounces. Silver today is actually rarer than gold.” Mark J. Lundeen, Editor

“Trump is killing the Dodd-Frank bank reserve requirement rules at roughly the same time as the Fed hikes rates again. That creates a powerful incentive for the banks to move money out of the Fed and put it into the fractional reserve banking system. As that happens, money velocity is going to reverse and it could literally ‘skyrocket.’” Stewart Thompson, Analyst

“It’s only a matter of time before mortgage rates begin their inevitable advance to double digits, exactly as they did from the 1950’s to 1981. When will this happen? With mortgage rates in the chart above seeing their bottom at 2.43% in October 2012, it may be happening now. Mortgage rates just haven’t crossed above their threshold of panic yet. But that threshold is lurking somewhere above the current high of 4.35% seen in September 2013, and we will cross above it in the years to come.” Mark J. Lundeen, Editor

“The culture of the Left in the U.S. is beginning to embrace zealotry and the path can only get more ugly from here. This is evident not only in the violent behavior of more vocal groups, but also in the lack of self-criticism by many on the left that would consider themselves more moderate. There are very few voices among liberals and “progressives” today that are openly admonishing the counterproductive and thuggish actions of their more extreme members. In many cases, ‘moderate’ leftists even cheer such actions.” Brandon Smith, Editor

March 6, 2017

“Get prepared, because we’re going to have the worst economic problems in your lifetime and a lot of people are going to disappear.” Jim Rogers, Author

“The dizzying borrowing by consumers and businesses that the Fed with its ultra-low interest rates and in its infinite wisdom has purposefully encouraged to fuel economic growth, and to inflate asset prices, has caused debt to pile up. That debt is now eating up cash flows needed for other things, and this is causing pressures, just when interest rates have begun to rise, which will make refinancing this debt more expensive and, for a rising number of consumers and businesses, impossible.” Wolf Richter, Editor

“Unless the Trump administration somehow finds a way to contain the unbridled expansion of "cheap" student debt, which is encumbering an entire generation with loans that can never be paid off, we are confident that it will be virtually impossible for the U.S. economy to truly undergo a sustained period of strong growth in the foreseeable future.” ZeroHedge

“The inflation drumbeat has grown more insistent lately, stoked by Fed blather about raising rates to prevent the economy from overheating. I’m not buying any of it, particularly statistics that purport to show inflation even in Europe. An epic deflation still awaits and eventually will be triggered by the implosion of a largely uncollateralized, quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble.” Rick Ackerman, Analyst

“Never in nine years has JPMorgan ever taken a loss on any short position in COMEX silver, a record that’s impossible to achieve legitimately but easy to prove and an indelible stain of shame on the regulators at the CFTC and CME.” Theodore Butler, Analyst

“In response to an intensifying economic downturn, financial market expectations should shift towards renewed Fed “easing,” with the effect of triggering a massive U.S. dollar sell-off, accompanied by a sharp upturn in oil prices, domestic inflation and a heavy flight to the safe-haven qualities of physical gold and silver.” John Williams, Economist

“Earlier this week the U.S. Department of Agriculture released its biannual report of farm incomes which paints a very bleak picture for the American farmer. In its first forecast for 2017, the USDA sees real farm cash receipts down 14% versus 2015 and 36% from the previous high set in 2012 as farm debt continues to soar and leverage surges to all-time highs. The deadly combination of rising input costs, lower grain prices, a strong dollar and excessive leverage will likely force many of America's Midwest farmers out of business in 2017.” ZeroHedge

“Police are not powerless in the face of left-wing protesters hell-bent on destruction, but their political masters refuse to let them do their jobs.” Matthew Vadum, Author

“Islamic immigration is unique in today’s world. It amounts to colonization by immigration. Radical Muslim theologians admit that they are following this strategy and extol its likely results.” Dick Morris, Author

“Bull markets are born on pessimism, grown on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell.” John Templeton

February 20, 2017

“The price of silver seems to be one area in which investors can realize a lot of gain as a percentage of their money.” Darren Capriotti, Analyst

“If we hope to live within our means interest rates can never be allowed to rise. But if interest rates don’t rise, the Fed is forced to create a tsunami of new dollars to keep rates low, and must take its chances with inflation, currency war, crack-up boom, and all the other black swans that live in the land of monetary excess.” John Rubino, Editor

“Uncle Sam is flat broke; and that reality will be the driving force that will upend the Trump administration before it barely gets started.” David Stockman, Economist

“Jorge Castañeda Gutman, former Secretary of Foreign Affairs in Mexico suggested that Mexico’s previous cooperation with the U.S. in curbing the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants could end. Instead, the cartels could be essentially unleashed upon the U.S. – retribution for tough policies on Mexico.” Mac Slavo, Editor

“Whereas the average inflation expectation was just 1.4% last summer, the expected inflation rate has now reached its highest level in almost 3 years, and the St. Louis Fed is now expecting the inflation rate to be 2.18%. Indeed, that’s an increase of 50% in just a few months and as the velocity of money in the monetary system starts to pick up again, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the inflation expectations head even higher.” Secular Investor

“The current credit cycle is already rolling over. Only policies an order of magnitude larger than the QE and TARP programs of 2008 can reignite the bubble. A few bridges and a wall aren’t going to solve the Chinese overcapacity problem, or the European banking problem, or Latin American commodity overinvestment, or mis-pricing in American stocks and bonds.” Daniel Oliver, Analyst

“Every collapse of a credit expansion is a bankruptcy, and the magnitude of the bankruptcy will be proportionate to the magnitude of the debt.” Freeman Tilden, 1936, Economist

“As time progresses, it appears more certain than ever that silver will climb vastly higher in price over the longer term based on just about every objective measurement available.” Theodore Butler, Analyst

“To keep the gold industry supplied, we need to discover 90 million ounces a year. We are discovering only 10 million to 15 million ounces a year.” Mark Bristow, CEO Rand Gold

February 6, 2017

“There's been billions and billions of dollars in fines paid by the banks for manipulating a variety of different markets. Yet, for some reason people have said, ‘Oh, no the gold and silver market are unique. They're not manipulated.’ Of course, they are manipulated and have been manipulated for over thirty years. It's nice to see that one of the banks has come out and actually admitted to it. And I think that's going to create a whole series of events. I'm optimistic that the banks will get out of the market and we will see true price discovery as a result.” Keith Neumeyer, CEO First Majestic

“Given the current state of knowledge, it is inconceivable that the precious metal silver could be replaced, since no other material fulfills the requirement for ‘cost in relation to performance’ in a comparable manner.” Dr. Arne Stassen, Technologist

“If you thought voting Trump into the office of the president constituted a victory, you are badly misreading historical precedent. The fight is just beginning. The leftist social justice warriors, their wealthy elite puppeteers, the neo-con military industrial complex warmongers, globalists, multi-culturists, and surveillance state apparatchiks have all made it clear they will violently and rhetorically resist Trump and his common man revolution. I don’t know if the normal people who supported Trump realize how abnormal, deviant, and despicable their opponents are. Blood will be spilled. Violence will beget violence. The country is already split and the divide will only grow wider. Someone will win and someone will lose. Our choices will matter.” Jim Quinn, Editor

“In the event of a still-likely, massive debasement of the U.S. dollar physical holdings of gold and silver remain the primary stores of wealth that can maintain purchasing power in a form that is both liquid and portable.” John Williams, Economist

“Advocates for limited government continue to debate the proper extent of state power. For those who want states to provide certain amenities, many modern states are far, far greater in size and scope that what is necessary to provide those amenities. Unfortunately, the primary effect of bigness in these states is to enhance the power of the state and limit the ability of citizens to escape the state's taxes and impoverishing regulations.” Ryan McMaken, Author

“I view steep financial market losses to be inevitable over the completion of this cycle.” John Hussman, Fund Manager

“Responsibility is the single most important component of social uplift – and therefore of equality.” Shelby Steele, Author

“After decades of state-administered benefits and services being poured into Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods, the Obama administration, in a consent decree, formally blamed the current anarchy on the police. This is the tacit admission of public failure.” Danial Henninger, Author

“Panic buying, which can empty the shelves of a major big-box retailer like Wal-Mart in just a few hours, is so commonplace even in the event of a minor, predictable weather event, what will happen when a serious crisis like a severe economic crash or an escalation of global conflict breaks out?” Mac Slavo, Editor

“Silver has defied expectations early in 2017, showing not only signs of life, but signs that it could be headed for greater and higher prices.” Darren Capricotti, Analyst

January 30, 2017

“Consider what you would do if you were JPMorgan and were aware that the idea was growing that you were manipulating silver and gold prices. Your choice would be to explain and justify your actions, or to end the scam before more learned of your illegal activities.” Theodore Butler, Analyst

“Starting in December 2015, JPMorgan purchased and took physical delivery of over 31 metric tons worth of bars of gold for its house account at COMEX alone. It now has a physical gold pile which, at minimum, is worth over $1.1 billion.” Avery Goodman, Analyst

“Kids are learning that America is nothing more than a series of incidents that oppress people, whether it’s Native Americans or women or blacks or Hispanics or Asian people. That’s what they’re learning.” Larry Elder, Radio Host

“We have heard from the Swiss refiners that in recent weeks they have at times had to pay premiums to buy gold due to shortages. So no one should believe that the paper price has anything to do with the real gold and silver markets. We are getting nearer to the point when the truth will hit this market. I would not like to be a holder of paper gold or silver at that point.” Egon von Greyerz, Asset Manager

“We expect global monetary authorities to protect the dollar as long as they can and we expect them to fail. Stocks and bonds will react violently; stocks and weak credits falling, Treasury prices rising (at first). That failure will lead to hyperinflation – not driven by demand, but rather by central bank money printing. A new global monetary understanding will then emerge.” Paul Brodsky, Asset Manager

“Silver prices are currently low by many measures so the probable move higher should be substantial. Risk of lower prices is small.” G. E. Christenson, Editor

January 6, 2017

Two quotes from the man who does the economic thinking for the left:

“To join Trump admin, you have to be white nationalist conspiracy theorist, but must also be always wrong in your supposed area of expertise.” Paul Krugman, December 2016

“By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine.” Paul Krugman, 1998

“Despite the continuing strong U.S. dollar rally subsequent to the election and the Fed’s rate hike, a tremendous threat to the dollar and systemic liquidity and stability continues, tied to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s inability to resolve fundamentally the 2008 financial collapse.” John Williams, Economist

“Right now, the U.S. dollar is extremely overbought while precious metals are the most oversold in many years.” Jeb Handwerger, Editor

“China embodies a Keynesian dystopia that results from central planning gone mad. Its mirage of prosperity should soon be coming to an unpleasant end. The misguided belief any government can print unlimited amounts of money and issue a massive amount of new credit; while providing the conditions that are the antitheses necessary for viable growth, has one significant Achilles' heel: eventually, it will destroy your currency.” Michael Pento, Author

“In Chicago and New York, two of the homicide capitals of America, blacks and Hispanics commit more than 95% of the murders. If one removes from the equation the criminal elements of the black and Hispanic populations of this country, America’s violent crime rates shrink astronomically until America looks more like European countries whose citizenries have no guns.” David Horowitz, Author

“The left envisions a fundamentally transformed America where individual rights are secondary to the collective rights of races, ethnicities, genders and classes.” David Horowitz, Author

“A picture emerges of a system that can’t handle rising interest rates, but is nonetheless getting them. The result? At best a global slowdown and at worst an epic crisis.” John Rubino, Editor

“For decades we have known that the time would come when Social Security & Medicare costs would begin a rapid and explosive growth upwards. That time is no longer the distant future – but something that will take place next year, and the year after, and the year after.” Daniel R. Amerman, CFA

“The cost to produce silver will continue to increase due to falling ore grades and the increased cost to extract, transport and process larger amounts of ore to produce the same amount of silver.” SRS Rocco

“Deutsche Bank is a defendant in more than 7,000 lawsuits worldwide. In two of them it has recently agreed to settlements and is prepared to pay tens of millions of U.S. dollars in restitution and fines. This includes the settling of lawsuits over gold and silver price manipulation. Associated court proceedings against other financial institutions are still underway.” Dmitri Speck, Analyst

“Mr. Trump’s turbo-charged growth expectations and the resultant inflation will result in a budgetary binge of colossal proportions. And thus, ironically, the King of Debt will be good for gold.” John Ing, Analyst

“Last week Bitcoin prices climbed to as much as $918.95, a 17.7% gain since the start of the week. Bitcoin is a proxy for gold and silver, for the uncertainty in the markets, especially the currency markets. Bitcoin is an easy way to evade capital, banking and transport restrictions though ultimately it is a virtual digital currency and can’t compete with real gold and silver. Be aware everything that is digital can be hacked and ask yourself who is going to be willing to sell physical gold for a digital algorithm when the U.S. dollar, still the anchor of the financial system, is failing.” Gijsbert Gruenewager, Analyst

December 26, 2016

“In the first quarter of 2016, $10 in new debt was needed to generate just $1 in new economic growth!” Gijsbert Groenewegen, Economist

“Now that Trump has appointed two Wall Street speculators – Steven Mnuchin at Treasury and Wilbur Ross at Commerce – to lead his economics team, a renewed fiscal calamity is virtually certain. Neither have the slightest clue that Uncle Sam is truly bankrupt and that 3-4% real growth in a nation buried under $64 trillion of public and private debt is a snare and a delusion. The stock market is the shorting opportunity of a lifetime.” David Stockman, Economist

“The Silver Institute just published its 2016 Silver Interim Report. According to their forecast for 2016, global silver production will decline to 887 million ounces (Moz), down from 893 Moz in 2015. Declining total supply is expected to be a key driver of annual deficits in the silver market going forward.” Silver Institute

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Winston Churchill

“At least since the sixties, the left-liberal consensus in America has worked to undermine traditional notions of decency, order, merit, and achievement. So monolithic was that consensus that a sudden reversion to normality came as a terrifying disillusionment. Hence the surreal, paranoid, tantrum-filled response of the coddled beneficiaries of our society.” Roger Kimball, Author

“For leftists, fighting carbon emissions means saving human existence on Earth. Now, how often does anyone get a chance to literally save the world? Therefore, to most leftists, if you voted for Trump, you have both negated their reason for living and are literally destroying planet Earth. Why would they have Thanksgiving or Christmas with such a person?” Dennis Prager, Editor

“So what is the [Dakota Access] pipeline dispute really about? Political expediency in a White House that does not see itself as being bound by the rule of law.” Kevin Cramer, Representative

“While the world celebrates the political demise of the wicked witch of the west and braces for a Trump-style president, the real crisis is coming, in the form of a financial avalanche that could dump on everyone’s parade.” Mac Slavo, Analyst

“Physical gold and silver are priced as if they are abundant when they are not. What is abundant is the paper derivative that is used to set the price.” Craig Hemke, Analyst

“There’s no froth in the current prices for gold and silver. This means precious metal assets are cheap, and cheap is good when one is buying. On the other hand, valuations in the stock market are priced for perfection, with little allowance for disappointments.” Mark J. Lundeen, Editor

December 14, 2016

“Debt monetization was the term that used to be used by economists to describe the undesirable outcome of a country’s central bank becoming the exclusive financier of its national debt. Inflation and currency devaluation were expected to be the results of this brash approach to fiscal policy. This will likely be our future under Trump. Investors would be wise to recognize this and to diversify appropriately.” Peter Schiff, Author

“The world is sitting at the edge of a massive deflationary cliff. Even though central banks are desperately trying to keep the world’s financial assets from plunging down into the great depression below, signs suggest they are losing the battle.” SRSrocco, Analysts

“Despite the euphoria that is presently being felt by Mister Trump’s supporters, the fundamentals that plague the U.S. economy remain present and not only is it impossible for him to reverse the pre-existent slide toward economic collapse, it’s not really even a part of the agenda.” Jeff Thomas, Editor

“There’s a reason today’s climate movement increasingly devotes its time and energy to persecuting heretics – because it’s the most efficient way to suppress reasoned examination of policies that cost taxpayers billions without producing any public benefit whatsoever.” Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Editor

“The systemic risks that existed prior to the presidential election have not suddenly vanished. Most important among these is a massive bond market bubble. Close behind, equity valuations remain at historically extreme levels.” John Hathaway, Portfolio Manager

December 7, 2016

“It is also becoming increasingly likely that the next fiscal year will be characterized by growing price inflation and belated increases in interest rates, against a background of rising raw material prices. That being the case, public finances are not only already fragile, but they are likely to become moreso from now on.” Alasdair Macleod, Economist

“Trump’s individual policies sound attractive. Who does not want better infrastructure? Who does not want better defense? But when you add them all up, this is going to mean much larger deficits.” James Rickards, Author

“If Trump does plan to massively increase government debt to pay for military and infrastructure spending, he is going to find out quickly that interest rates will not stay low for long.” Guy Manno, Editor

“If the Federal Reserve loses control and interest rates return to more historically normal levels, this will lead to an extraordinary increase in annual deficits that would send the national debt soaring upwards and out of control. But if rates don’t rise, then saver wealth could decrease by as much as 95% compared to historical norms, which creates an extraordinary conflict of interest between the government and savers.” Daniel Ammerman, Analyst

December 1, 2016

“Pre-1965 90% silver quarters and dimes are essential for any barter stash. During an economic panic or retail silver shortage, premiums on pre-1965 silver coins could surge. It’s best to stock up on these historic, no-longer-minted coins while premiums are still low, as they are now.” Mike Gleason, Analyst

“We take in $3.1 trillion and we spend $3.7 trillion, and that $600 billion deficit at the rate of $50 billion a month. Our government is printing money and it’s degrading the living standard of every person in America. It’s the cause of frustration, anger and confusion.” Steve Wynn, Hotelier

“A recent Baseline Magazine survey found that 75% of employers said that two or more hours of productivity are lost per employee every workday due to distractions. According to employers, the leading productivity killers are mobile phones and texting.” Fred Hickey, Analyst

“If gold priced in dollars today bore the same relationship to the quantity of dollars in existence some eighty years ago, the price range in today’s dollars would be between $4,000 and $11,640.” Alasdair MacLeod, Editor

“With rising energy costs, soaring medical costs, record high home prices and rent expense, the average new car price at a record $34,000, and food prices rising steadily, the standard of living continues to plunge. Sit back and enjoy our journey to Third World status.” Jim Quinn, Editor

“The current financial system will not survive because it is based on principles which are not sustainable. In such a defective system, there is no sound money.” Egon von Greyerz, Asset Manager

November 4, 2016

“Holding physical gold and silver remains the primary hedge in preserving the purchasing power and liquidity of one’s wealth and assets in the difficult times ahead. The hedge needs to be held into and through the crisis, in order to provide its full benefit.” John Williams, Economist

“These are extraordinarily dangerous times. Desperation is forcing investors to take risks that they shouldn’t take. It ‘cannot end well’ and it might end in ‘chaos.’ When it comes, Paul Singer expects the market breakdown to be ‘sudden, intense and large.’ In other words, the Wall Street herd will be completely unprepared.” Fred Hickey, Editor

“The stock averages are now floating precariously in the nosebleed section of historical valuation, waiting for an unexpected shock to send them spiraling downward. Indeed, we believe the market could drop by 40% or more from current levels, and that it could happen in a sudden violent plunge.” David Stockman, Economist

“Most European banks would be bankrupt if they valued their toxic assets at market rather than maturity value. Currently many European banks are on the verge of failure whether it is German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or French banks. Share prices of many major European banks are down 80-95% which clearly indicates that the markets consider their chances of survival to be very small. Deutsche Bank is one example of a bank that is unlikely to survive. Its market value is now less than 1% of its balance sheet.” Egon von Greyerz, Analyst

“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.” John Maynard Keynes, Economist

“The people of this country should be scared about the debt. But instead they are focused like a laser beam on Kim Kardashian’s latest escapade, Twitter wars, Facebook pictures of a distant cousin’s toe fungus, and the latest adventures of the Housewives of New Jersey.” Jim Quinn, Editor

“The industrial uses for silver grow by the day and it is one of the most important ‘commodities’ on the planet. It is used in such a wide variety of products that our world would be completely different without silver.” William Middelkoop, Author

“For a long time, Columbus Day was a big deal in this country. All of this began to change, however, once the left began seizing control of those of our institutions that function as centers of opinion-shaping. Courtesy of this fundamental transformation of the cultural landscape, the image of Columbus himself has been transformed from a hero of Western Civilization to its archetypal villain.” Jack Kerwick, Editor

“The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.” Dr. Adrian Rogers, Author

October 31, 2016

“Given a choice between maintaining a stronger dollar, propped by higher rates, or attempting to salvage collapsing equity prices, the U.S. financial system will opt for propping the stock market every time. Such helps to doom the system eventually to expanded quantitative easing after the election, irrespective of any near-term rate hikes, and irrespective of any fears as to the horrendous inflation problems suggested by that circumstance. The ultimate hedge and asset/wealth protection remains to buy and to hold physical gold and silver.” John Williams, Economist

“Something BIG is afoot ‘behind the scenes’ in the financial system. I believe that something is a banking crisis in the EU. The clear signal is coming from Deutsche Bank (DB). DB is the proverbial ‘canary in the coalmine’ for Europe. Perched atop the largest derivatives book in Europe, DB has ties to most major financial institutions in the region. Which is why as soon as DB starts nose-diving, you know something big is up. DB shares are down 16% since September 15th and nearly 20% from September 9th. Put another way, this bank has lost a FIFTH of its market cap in less than two weeks.” Graham Summers, Editor

“It makes sense to own some bullion (gold and silver) as the experiment central bankers are conducting has never been done before.” Sol Palha, Analyst

“The stage has been set for the greatest economic and financial implosion in U.S. history, and the pain that is coming is going to affect every man, woman and child in this country. Trump and Clinton talk about tinkering with tax rates and regulations, but those measures are going to be meaningless when compared to the massive economic tsunami that is coming. The next president is going to inherit the biggest economic problems that this nation has ever faced.” Michael Snyder, Editor

“The fate of the U.S. dollar is in the hands of academic maniacs, doing the bidding of malignant-narcissist bankers and political scoundrels.” Mark J. Lundeen, Editor

“We have reached the switchover point at which the costs of additional monetary stimulus exceed any benefits.” Adam Taggart, Analyst

“Off-balance sheet debt liabilities, including Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, at an estimated $5 to $6 trillion; unfunded liabilities for Medicare, Medicaid, and social security, estimated between $60 trillion and $150 trillion; plus other liabilities, equals a range of about $85 trillion to $175 trillion. Factor in that U.S. GDP is a mere $18 trillion, and we can see that our obligations are between 4x and 8x our productive capacity. And how long can this charade continue?” John Embry, Editor

“Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value. Zero.” Voltaire, French Philosopher

“Considering how low existing silver inventories are after more than a half-century of depletion, the current and prospective levels of world inventories can hardly be considered bearish and, in fact, must be considered wildly bullish.” Theodore Butler, Silver Analyst

October 17, 2016

“It is often argued that there is a limit to monetary easing, but I do not share such a view.” Haruhiko Kuroda, Governor, Bank of Japan

“It is undeniable that the stage is set for a crisis that will absolutely dwarf 2008. Our national debt has nearly doubled since the beginning of the last crisis, corporate debt has doubled, student loan debt has crossed the trillion dollar mark, auto loan debt has crossed the trillion dollar mark, and total household debt has crossed the 12 trillion dollar mark. We are living in the greatest debt bubble in world history, and there are signs that this giant bubble is now starting to burst. And when it does, the pain is going to be greater than most people would dare to imagine.” Michael Snyder, Editor

“Silver is a unique commodity with great diversification potential, protection against systematic financial failure, and extreme upside!” Palisade Research

“One in six prime-age guys has no job; it’s kind of worse than it was in the Depression in 1940.” Nicholas Eberstadt, Economics

September 8, 2016

“Sovereign debt is my nomination for the number one overvalued market around the world. You are earning nothing or less than nothing for the privilege of lending your money to a government that has pledged to depreciate the currency that you’re investing in. The central banks of the world are striving to achieve a rate of inflation of 2% or more and you are lending certainly at much less than 2% and in many cases at less than nominal 0%. The experience of losing money is common in investing. But where is the certitude of loss even before your check clears? That’s the situation with sovereign debt right now.” Jim Grant, Analyst

“The truth is the economy is most likely already in a recession and there never was a viable economic recovery. Just an anemic, ersatz and transitory bounce in GDP derived from artificial, record-low interest rates and asset bubbles. Investors need to keep their eyes open as equity prices march further into all-time high territory. And, most importantly, have a strategy to protect their portfolios once sanity returns to the market.” Michael Pento, Analyst

“In order to counter falling productivity, households, companies, as well as the government have taken on unsustainable amounts of debt to keep consumption going.” Valentin Schmid, Editor

“The end result of today’s massive central bank intrusion in financial markets will be yet another thundering crash of high flyers and a resulting financial crisis of unprecedented extent.” David Stockman, Economist

September 2, 2016

“The most dynamic religion of the last hundred years has been leftism. Not Christianity, and not Islam, but leftism. Leftism has taken over the world’s leading educational institutions, the world’s news media and the world’s popular entertainment.” Dennis Prager, Commentator

“While economists, media, and analysts wish to blame those ‘stingy consumers’ for not buying more stuff, the reality is the majority of American consumers have likely reached the limits of their ability to consume.” Lance Roberts, Editor

“The current path of monetary and credit expansion is unsustainable and will eventually burst, leaving investors struggling for the return of their capital, instead of return on their capital, an extremely bullish scenario for gold and other real assets.” Diego Parrilla, Author
“There is no means of avoiding a final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.” Ludwig von Mises, Economist

“The most important question for the future of America is how we treat our entrepreneurs. If our government continues to smear, harass, overtax, and oppressively regulate them, we will be dismayed by how swiftly the engines of American prosperity deteriorate. We will be amazed at how quickly American wealth flees to other countries.” George Gilder, Author

“The U.S. economy remains in intensifying crisis, with no chance of near-term recovery. A U.S. dollar collapse looms as the Fed inches closer to a highly likely, renewed and expanded quantitative easing. The dollar collapse and related dumping of dollar-denominated assets should trigger the early stages of serious domestic inflation, with spiking commodity prices. Heavily bloated U.S. equity markets should suffer along with heavy flight from the U.S. dollar and related assets. Flight-to-safety will spike the dollar prices of store-of-wealth assets such as physical gold and silver, the ultimate hedges for those living in a U.S. dollar-denominated world.” John Williams, Economist

“The ultimate breakdown [in the stock market] from this environment is likely to be surprising, sudden, intense, and large.” Paul Singer, Asset Manager

“I think the market is at literally very high levels because of zero interest rates. There's going to be a day of reckoning here. I've seen it many times in my life. When things look good, they look great. You go into the sky. But that's when you have to really pull down and really stop buying.” Carl Icahn, Capitalist

“Cathay Pacific announced earnings earlier this week which paint a fairly ominous picture for China. The airline posted a 9.3% YoY drop in revenue and an 82% decline in net profit which they attributed to ‘weak passenger demand, particularly in the premium class.’” Cathay Pacific

August 31, 2016

“The U.S. economy is like a guy that jumped out of a plane with no parachute and because he hasn’t hit the ground yet, he thinks he’s ok.” William C. Alexander, Philosopher

“This whole speculative mania will end tragically. How did we not learn this from 2000-2002, or 2007-2009, or the collapse of every other mania in history?” John Hussman, Analyst

“With the monetary system we have now, the careful saving of a lifetime can be wiped out in an eye blink.” Larry Parks, Economist

“To most people today, five-figure gold, or four-figure silver prices seem farfetched. Then most people today have never made the effort to investigate the miserable five-thousand-year history of what government has done to their coin of the realm. As current “monetary policy” is to support stocks and bond prices far above fair market value, while subduing price gains for gold and silver, now seems the time to allow the “policy makers” to pay top dollar for your stocks and bonds, and then purchase as much subsidized gold and silver as you can, and still get a good night’s sleep.” Mark J. Lundeen, Analyst

“Food stamps can be used to have groceries delivered right to a recipient’s door. Service with a smile. The Obama administration says it is too much of a hardship for those on welfare to actually travel to the grocery store. What’s next? Cooking the meal for them?” Stephen Moore, Economist

“The world has caught on, and the gig is up. Under Obama’s stewardship, the U.S. national debt has gone from $10 trillion, to what will be $20 trillion by the time he leaves office, with nothing more than 100 million Americans out of work, and 50 million in poverty and on food stamps. That’s what cheap money bought for us. It was all “borrowed” cheap money too, making it infinitely worse, and the world is tired of lending.” Mac Slavo, Analyst

“Weaker-than-expected GDP news triggered some flight from the U.S. dollar to gold and oil, but those circumstances still await a major negative economic shock to trigger the onset of a massive flight from the U.S. currency. Such shocks loom in headline monthly economic detail in the next month or so.” John Williams, Economist

“The belief in the power of institutional racism allows black civil rights to denounce America as a racist society, when it is actually the only society on earth – black, white, brown or yellow – whose defining creed is anti-racist; a society to which blacks from black-ruled nations regularly flee in search of opportunity and refuge.” David Horowitz, Author

“The Bank of Japan and European Central Bank money-printing programs combined are larger than anything the world’s seen before. Starting soon, the Bank of England will add to the record levels of newly printed money sloshing around the planet. And I do mean slosh.” Fred Hickey, Analyst

“Buy gold and save yourself.” Michael Lewitt, Author

“The official unemployment number has grown increasingly useless as a reliable economic indicator, for the simple reason that millions of people have simply quit looking for a job. Since the unemployment rate is based only on those who are actively looking for work, the more people who drop out of the labor force, the lower the unemployment rate becomes.” Investor’s Business Daily
“When government overspends, overtaxes and over-regulates, economic freedom is suppressed and economic growth vanishes. When growth fades, it takes the American dream with it. Give America back its economic system of freedom and opportunity, and the ensuing growth will bring back the American Dream.” Phil Gramm, Economist

“The deepest mine in the world is the Mponeng gold mine, southwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, where miners now drill more than 3.9 kilometers below ground (2.4 miles). Rock temperatures reach 55°C (131°F). Huge refrigeration and pumping equipment cool the air to a more bearable 28°C (82.” Visual Capitalist

August 25, 2016

“America has become the least racist multiracial, multiethnic country in world history.” Dennis Prager, Author

“Silver is now performing more positively, despite the best efforts of the usual suspects to suppress the price. And this is confirmed by the Open Interest being near all-time record levels, which just shows how hard they are working to keep the price at low levels. I firmly believe we are on the cusp of an explosion in the silver price that will ultimately see silver trade at many multiples of the current $20 price. And if the hyperinflation occurs, which I believe is inevitable due to the current global monetary policy, who knows how high the price can go? I cannot encourage readers enough to get as much exposure as possible in silver.” John Embry, Economist

“So it’s my view that [helicopter money] would be sort of the next step if we ever found ourselves in a situation where we wanted to be more accommodative.” Loretta Mester, President, Cleveland Federal Reserve

“‘Helicopter money’ isn’t some kind of new wrinkle in monetary policy, at all. It’s an old as the hills rationalization for monetization of the public debt – that is, purchase of government bonds with central bank credit conjured from thin air. It’s the ultimate in ‘something for nothing’ economics.” David Stockman, Economist

“What the West fails to recognize, is that gold is a flight to safety and alternative currency of choice for 5 billion people on the planet.” Joni Tevis, Analyst

“In the Democratic Party platform, the word ‘invest’ shows up more than 45 times. The Democrats took a page from Orwell and changed the word ‘spend’ to ‘invest.’ After all, who could be opposed to the government making investments? Today’s Democratic Party firmly believes that the only way to grow the economy is to forcibly remove still more money from the pockets of private investors, and put it into the hands of unaccountable government bureaucrats, political hacks and politically connected businesses.” Investor’s Business Daily

“The gigantic silver war continues unabated. Hedge funds keep piling in on the long side while Commercials keep selling them all they want. The hedge fund net long is at a new all-time high. Commercial net shorts are fast approaching the all-time high set back in October 2009.” Dan Norcini, Analyst

“Despite ever larger and constantly growing expenditures, the ‘welfare mess’ in the United States is getting steadily worse. In fact, a strong case can be made – and has been made – that the poor in America…have become the poorer, the more helpless, the more disadvantaged, the more welfare money is being spent to help them. American welfare spending encourages dependence. It paralyzes rather than energizes.” Peter Drucker, Author

“America’s 20th-century experiment with the welfare state desolated our cities, created a permanent underclass of promiscuity, illegitimacy, welfare and crime, and gave us children and adults full of race hatred instead of the social discipline and work ethic necessary to civilization.” Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Economist

July 29, 2016

“Several communists and radical anti-American socialists now serve on the influential Democratic Party Platform Drafting Committee. Marxists will set the policy direction for the Democratic party. Most of these individuals could not pass an FBI background security check to sell you stamps at the Post Office. They would not be allowed to clean the toilets on any military base in this country. Yet they are drafting policies that will shape the lives of more than 300 million Americans.” Trevor Louden, Author

“Our system of immigration, legal and illegal, is a rigged game meant to produce the outcome that is most favorable to the political ambitions of the Democrats and their left-wing political allies. From its country quotas to its refugee programs to its current underground amnesty, it was set up as a means of maximizing the number of potential Democrat voters, allies and clients in the United States.” Daniel Greenfield, Author

“The public is walking into a trap again as they did in 2007.” Carl Icahn

“U.S. stocks are now about 80% overvalued.” Andrew Smithers, Economist

“Silver presents a bigger problem for the big banks than gold. The fact that it is now reacting higher at a much higher rate than gold shows that this belief is shared by people with the funds to act on it and to buy silver before supply gets threadbare. Readers who are not yet partially invested in silver in metal form may have little time to do so. Apart from the price running steeply higher, the problem of limited supply is not far away.” Daan Joubert, Editor

“In the World Gold Council's Gold Investor magazine, Jiao Jinpu, Chairman of the Shanghai Gold Exchange, reports that ‘In its first month, the Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price’s trading volume was 105.91 metric tons of gold kilo bars. 102.10 metric tons of gold were physically settled, addressing the market’s need for physical gold.’ I emphasize the physical nature of settlements on the Shanghai Gold Exchange as a requirement that will have significant impact on the gold market in the years to come. Over 96% of the volume on the SGE is settled in physical metal. Speculation on the price sans delivery, which drives activity on New York's COMEX, is discouraged on the SGE.” Michael Kosares, Editor

“With its relentless pursuit of fracking driving down the cost of natural gas, America has made a momentous switch from coal to gas that has done more to drive down carbon-dioxide emissions than any recent climate policy. Turns out that those who gathered in Paris, France, could learn a little from Paris, Texas.” Bjorn Lomborg, Author

“Holding physical gold and silver will preserve the purchasing power of today’s U.S. dollar through the extraordinary financial and currency turmoil.” John Williams, Economist

“Add it all up and a picture emerges of a global crisis with Europe at its epicenter. Brexit, contrary to conventional wisdom, is a side-effect of this mess rather than a cause. Italy’s banks were always going to need a bail-out and Deutsche Bank was always going to blow up.” John Rubino, Editor

“This is the second time this year that silver has made its intentions clear – i.e. that it is going parabolic.” Chris Vermeulen, Editor

“Despite the headline numbers (like Friday’s largely-fictitious jobs report) that imply a stable, modest expansion, under the surface the financial system – composed of business loans, bank profits, etc. – is deteriorating fast. John Rubino, Editor

July 14, 2016

“The collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1989, laid bare the degree of devastation which the command economy, or socialism, or Communism, or whatever you care to call the Marxist-Leninist way of running things, has inflicted on the environment in Eastern Europe and West and Central Asia. We are only now beginning to understand the magnitude of the damage which has been done, some of it irreparable. The Soviet Union ruined the entire Aral Sea and some of the largest river systems in the world. What is notable is that the environmentalist lobbies, once so noisy in contrasting capitalist shame with socialist pride, have made no apology at all for thus misleading the world. They have simply passed to fresh battles, usually against Western governments and international companies.” Paul Johnson, Author

“The government monopoly of money leads not just to the suppression of innovation and experiment, not just to inflation and debasement, not just to financial crises, but to inequality too.” Matt Ridley, Author
“With likely mounting financial stresses on a troubled banking system, deteriorating federal fiscal performance and Treasury funding needs, and increasing turmoil in the domestic equity markets, the Federal Reserve appears to have put its heretofore aggressive credit-tightening talk into hibernation.” John Williams, Economist

“Currently the Fed is neither fighting inflation, as they did from 1954 to 1981; nor deflation as they did from 1981 to 2007, just before the mortgage crisis. Today they are fighting for their professional lives, because they know exactly what they have done, and the horrific consequences that are going to follow. Everyone is going to suffer. But to mitigate the damage coming our way, owning gold and silver bullion makes sense in today’s world.” Mark J. Lundeen, Editor

“Now watch central banks. The crazier the world becomes, the more the BoJ, Fed and ECB will feel compelled to flood the markets with liquidity. Problem is, capital will soon be flowing out of financial assets even faster than central banks can pump it in.” John Rubino, Editor

“What we are in essence witnessing in many European welfare states these days is what happens when socialists are running out of other people’s money. The battle between different strands of French socialism/welfare statism over the remaining scraps of wealth is nothing new or special. We have seen similarly inspired protests and riots in Spain, in Greece and other places. On the one hand, it is great fun to see socialists fighting amongst each other, but unfortunately it is also a symptom of what is coming – and what is coming is not going to be fun at all.” Pater Tenebrarum, Economist

“Nearly four in 10 millennials (39%) say they interact more with their smartphones than they do with their significant others, parents, friends, children or co-workers.” Catey Hill, Author

“Second-quarter 2016 industrial production appears set to become the third consecutive quarter showing both annual and quarterly contractions, and the fifth quarter out of the last six, to decline quarter-to-quarter. Nothing like this ever has been seen outside of formally recognized recessions, in the history of the Index of Industrial Production, which goes back to 1918. The United States is in recession, and formal recognition of that remains likely in the next several months.” John Williams, Economist

“Brexit showed that it is possible for a great nation to defy its leaders and its establishment thinkers to throw off its multinational chains.” Daniel Greenfield, Editor

June 30, 2016

“The great promise of socialism is something for nothing. It is one of the signs of today’s dumbed-down education that so many college students seem to think that the cost of their education should – and will – be paid by raising taxes on ‘the rich.’” Thomas Sowell, Economist

“We’ve got a deflationary recession emerging everywhere in the world…China is a massive speculative mania that’s going to collapse any day.” David Stockman, Economist

“In Detroit, 96 percent of eighth graders are not proficient in math. Ninety-three percent are not proficient in reading. In Baltimore, 91 percent of the students fail the math exam. In Chicago, 77 percent of students fall below standards in achievement. In 17 of our 50 largest cities, fewer than half of all students graduate from high school.” Newt Gingrich, Author

“A system built on making promises it cannot keep is bound to crash…and crash again.” Martin Wolf, Commentator

“The old-time American mainstream, working-and middle-class white males and their families, is mad as hell about political correctness and the havoc it has wreaked for 40 years – havoc made worse by the flat refusal of most serious Republicans to confront it.” David Gelernter, Editor

“In both England and the United States, the massive expansion of the welfare state since the 1960’s has been accompanied by a vast expansion in the amount of crime, violence, drug addiction, fatherless children and other signs of social degeneration.” Thomas Sowell, Economist

“The rapidly approaching big problem for the U.S. Federal Reserve is that the U.S. economy likely will be in a formal ‘new’ recession by mid-August. Market speculations under such a circumstance likely would move rapidly towards some expanded form of Quantitative Easing (QE4). Such considerations increasingly should savage the exchange-rate value of the U.S. dollar, placing meaningful upside pressure on the prices of gold, silver and oil. The more troubled the economy and the more intense the selling pressure on the U.S. currency, the more difficult circumstances also will become for the U.S. equity markets.” John Williams, Economist

“The Fed has pumped the third financial bubble of this century with even more reckless abandon than it did during the dotcom boom and the housing boom.” David Stockman, Economist

June 22, 2016

“In the media and the classroom, entrepreneurs are smeared as greedy and destructive, when in fact they are heroes, essential to human flourishing. Instead, we are supposed to worship politicians and officials who are no better than common thieves. Yet far more destructive.” Llewellyn Rockwell, Jr., Economist

“The left is destroying the foundational values of this country, including, but hardly limited to, free speech.” Dennis Prager, Radio Host

“A high risk of extreme flight from the U.S. dollar – a massive dollar debasement – continues to threaten an increasingly rapid upturn in energy and global commodity inflation, which would drive headline U.S. consumer inflation much higher. That process continues, and it should accelerate in tandem with renewed tumbling in U.S. economic activity.” John Williams, Economist

“My generation gave former tenured economics professors discretionary authority to fabricate money and to fix interest rates. We put the cart of asset prices before the horse of enterprise. We entertained the fantasy that high asset prices made for prosperity, rather than the other way around. We actually worked to foster inflation, which we called 'price stability' (this was on the eve of the hyperinflation of 2017). We seem to have miscalculated.” Jim Grant, Economist

“One of the hoariest progressive clichés is that they are the party of enlightenment, reason, and fact, while conservatives are ignorant obscurantists, ‘bitter clingers’ to the superstitions of religion and tradition. The prejudice is false.” Bruce Thornton, Author

“Continued dependence upon relief, induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1935

“Confidence is easily lost among investors when a nation is on an unsustainable trajectory.” Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Economist

“The Keynesian gods have failed, and as a result, we’re in the eye of a global financial hurricane.” Charles Hugh-Smith, Editor

“Without government intervention, green energy moguls like Elon Musk would need to invest and risk their own money on costly solar power projects. Without U.S. taxpayers to foot the bill for these dubious schemes, government intervention would not be possible.” Daniel Greenfield, Author

“Historians have long known the rise and fall of empires have much to do with the quality of the coins of their realms. At their peaks, Rome, Byzantium, Spain, Great Britain and yes the United States all had sound currencies, and a political class that for the most part refused to resort to monetary inflation to fund government operations. But for all of the above that was to change; and with the change began their declines. William Durant in 1935 addressed China’s 11th century experiment with paper money, and its impact on global history. ‘Such were the sources of that flood of paper money which, ever since, has alternatively accelerated and threatened the economic life of the world.’ - William Durant: Our Oriental Heritage, (1935) pg. 780.” Mark J. Lundeen, Editor

“It should be self-evident that eight years’ worth of unprecedented money printing and interest rate manipulations have caused the greatest distortion of asset prices in history. Therefore, the inevitable conclusion is for an unprecedented economic contraction to occur once the party inevitably comes to a close. The primary questions for investors are to know how to best ride this bubble, when to get out and how to profit from its collapse.” Michael Pento, Editor

“Debt drains away vital resources from economic growth. Fighting a debt crisis with more debt is doomed to failure, yet that is not only what global central banks did during the crisis, but long after markets stabilized (though the crisis never truly ended, just slowed). This was an epic policy failure that continues today.” Michael Lewitt, Analyst

“China’s economy resembles a spinning top that is running out of momentum. It is wobbling and gyrating erratically.” Richard Duncan, Economist

“There are limits on what the Fed can do when this bubble bursts, as it inevitably will, as surely as night follows day. It's no secret that virtually every pension fund is a dead man walking, doomed by central banks' imposition of low yields on safe investments.” Charles Hugh-Smith

The left, without remorse, appoints activist judges, whom they view not as protectors of the Constitution and law, but as vehicles to advance its political agenda by any means necessary, including twisting the meaning of constitutional and statutory provisions and often inventing rights out of whole cloth.” David Limbaugh

June 8, 2016

“We have a condition of stagflation here in the U.S. This is occurring in the context of a record $45.2 trillion total non-financial debt, which is growing at an incredible 3.44 times GDP. This is the truth as to why the Fed cannot normalize rates. If it did bring the Fed Funds rate back towards the pre-Great Recession level of around 5%, asset bubbles would collapse along with the tax base of the economy. This would make that already unsustainable ratio of debt-to-GDP growth explode even higher. You and your portfolio should be on high alert, the market chaos has just begun.” Michael Pento, Author and Asset Manager

“In 2005, I argued that Greenspan Fed was sowing the seeds of an historical housing bubble fed by reckless sub-prime borrowing that would end very badly. Those policy excesses pale in comparison to the duration and extent of today’s monetary experiment.” Stan Druckenmiller, Legendary Hedge Fund Manager

“The goal of socialism is communism.” Vladimir Lenin

“Socialism is mutually shared poverty. It is the ultimate liberal fantasy and is built on envy, a sense of entitlement and greed.” Victor Hanson, Editor

“Artistic standards have been destroyed. In music, art and architecture, nonsense and ugliness have replaced the pursuit of meaning, edification and beauty.” Dennis Prager, Editor

“Ultimately, gold and silver will see dollar prices that would shock most people today.” Mark J. Lundeen, Editor

“As a Western revolutionary, Obama has been relentless in his efforts over the last seven years to use all the machinery and influence of government, whether illegally or legally, to fundamentally transform America into the neo-Marxist democracy he and his father have long dreamed about.” Mark Hanna, Editor

“In Canada, one pocket of free-market medicine: clinics offer cutting-edge, life-saving technology without waiting lines. But you need four legs to get that treatment. If Canadians want a C.T. scan, the waiting list is a month. But a private veterinary clinic will scan your dog today.” John Stossel, Commentator

“There has been entirely too much emphasis on what students want to learn and how students think about courses, admissions and faculty. Since when have schools existed to teach students what they want to learn? Race, gender and multiculturalism are now the basis for degrees – pieces of paper that are useless in the fields that drive the economy and create our nation’s wealth and health. The marriage of political correctness and affirmative action has turned colleges into timid, regressive race-conscious mills where brains are addled and interests coddled lest someone’s feelings get hurt.” Richard Klitzberg, Writer

“The most likely future path of U.S. equities involves a lower valuation.” Goldman

May 17, 2016

“More good news for silver bulls: there’s supply trouble brewing. Output from mines will fall for the first time since 2011, while demand for the metal in uses including industrial products and jewelry is heading for a fourth straight gain, supporting prices, according to CPM Group. The market is entering what is ‘likely to be a pivotal year,’ the New York-based researcher said in its Silver Yearbook 2016.” Bloomberg

“There is heavy buying in silver in Shanghai.” Reuters – Roland Leung

“Silver officially entered a new bull market. decisively crossing the necessary +20% threshold. Speculators and investors alike are returning as awareness spreads of how radically undervalued silver is compared to prevailing gold prices. When silver awakens to a new bull market after a long bearish slumber, massive gains are usually unleashed. Silver’s tiny advance so far is just the tip of the iceberg.” Adam Hamilton, Editor

“Keith Neumeyer explains how a large electronics manufacturer recently contacted his company, First Majestic, regarding the acquisition of silver for their manufacturing processes. This screams of a very, very tight supply of silver in large quantities.” Rory Hall, Editor

“1) Can an economy grow when its banks, energy companies and tech giants are all losing ground? 2) Can a hyper-leveraged global financial system survive if its main economies can't grow? The answer to both questions is almost certainly ‘no.’ So either something extraordinary happens to ignite sustainable growth, or the dissolution of the fiat currency/fractional reserve banking/central planning model will begin. Expect developed world governments to do almost literally anything to stop that from happening.” John Rubino, Editor

“This month, Stanford University students voted on a campus resolution that would have their college require a course on Western civilization, as it did until the 1980s. Stanford students rejected the proposal 1,992 to 347. A columnist at the Stanford Daily explained why: Teaching Western civilization means ‘upholding white supremacy, capitalism and colonialism, and all other oppressive systems that flow from Western civilizations.’” Dennis Prager, Radio Host

“But government doesn’t make anything great, including itself. It is a necessary evil that always and everywhere is driven toward self-aggrandizement and mission creep by the politicians and special interest lobbies which control its operations. What government actually does is thwart the capacity of the people to pursue their own vision of greatness by encumbering their economic lives with burdensome taxation, regulation, roadblocks to opportunity and monetary fraud while saddling their public lives with endless Nanny State impositions and encroachments upon their personal liberty.” David Stockman, Economist

“Not only has the U.S. economy continued to weaken, but also a number of other major central banks have taken recent, unusual easing and monetary-policy actions, suggestive more of a global financial system in extraordinary crisis, than one that is moving forward on a happy and healthy basis. Circumstances appear ready to turn particularly negative against the U.S. dollar, with corresponding rallies likely in the prices for gold, silver and oil.” John Williams, Shadow Stats

“Millionaires fearing civil unrest are fleeing Chicago by the thousands… Roughly 3,000 millionaires have left the city over the past year alone, which amounts to about 2 percent of their wealthy population.” Chicago Tribune

“There is nothing more exhilarating then stumbling across an asset that is insanely undervalued – and that is being ignored by the uninformed masses.” A. G. Thorson, Editor
“The silver/gold ratio by global deposits is 18.75; that is, for every troy ounce (oz.) of gold, you can find 18.75/oz. of silver in the earth’s crust. The great Sir Isaac Newton fixed the ratio of gold/silver at 1:15.5 while he was the master of the Royal Mint, in 1717. If the ratio comes down to its actual historical average of 1:16. If gold prices remain where they are at $1200/oz., silver will quote at a price of $75/oz.” Chris Vermeulen, Analyst

“When you pay three times as much for a pound of hamburger as you paid a mere ten years earlier, you’re purchasing the same pound of meat – it’s just your currency which has lost two-thirds of its value. Two-thirds of the wealth you used to have stored in that paper has been stolen.” Jeff Nielson, Analyst

“Be very careful. The U.S. economic expansion is long in the tooth and starting to hit the time-honored constraints that mark the last phase of the business cycle. Wall Street equities are more stretched by a host of measures than they were at the peak of the sub-prime bubble just before the Lehman crisis.” Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Editor

“Last week, the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued new guidelines to landlords, warning that bans against renters with criminal convictions violate the Fair Housing Act because they disproportionately affect minorities. In effect, the Obama regime is now outlawing criminal background checks for apartment rentals, even though such screening is critical for the protection and security of tenants and property.” Investor’s Business Daily

“Barak Obama has demonstrated what disasters a president can create when he ignores the warnings of the country’s top military leaders, as he did when he pulled American troops out of Iraq, setting the stage for the emergence of ISIS. Obama dealt with that problem, as he has dealt with other problems, by coming up with glib rhetoric – in this case, dismissing ISIS as the junior varsity. The horrors that have followed wherever ISIS has taken over the Middle East – especially for women and girls – make Obama’s slick words grotesque.” Thomas Sowell, Author

“Thanks to fracking and horizontal drilling technologies, we are producing more natural gas than ever before. Natural gas is a wonder fuel: It is cheap. It is abundant. America has more of it than anyone else – enough to last several hundred years. And it is clean-burning. Meanwhile, the left has declared war on a technology that has done more to reduce carbon emissions and real pollution emissions than all the green programs ever invented.” Stephen Moore, Economist

“A chilling new report finds the number of police officers murdered in the line of duty has doubled so far this year vs. the same period last year. Yet the president remains silent about the spike in cop killings.” Investor’s Business Daily

“Underlying fundamentals to consumer economic activity, such as liquidity, have been severely impaired in the last decade, having driven economic activity into collapse and prevented sustainable economic rebound, recovery or ongoing growth.” John Williams, Shadow Stats

“The Fed-induced auto loan bubble is bursting, as default rates on the billions of subprime slime loans issued in the last few years skyrocket, and the prices of used cars crash as the millions of leases come due. Dealer lots are overflowing with overpriced automobiles with no demand. The implications of this bubble bursting are far-reaching. The fallacious demand created by easy money kept the union manufacturing plants humming and allowed Obama to crow about saving the auto industry. As demand collapses, layoffs will surge, and the minimal profits being generated by GM, Ford, and Chrysler will turn to huge losses again.” Jim Quinn, Editor

“All calls for unity by Democrats are particularly fraudulent. Dividing Americans by race, gender and class is how the left views America and how Democratic candidates seek to win elections.” Dennis Prager, Editor

April 28, 2016

“Lonnie Holmes, 21, lives in Richmond, a working-class suburb north of San Francisco. Four of his cousins have died in shootings. He was a passenger in a car involved in a drive-by shooting, police said. And he was arrested for carrying a loaded gun. When Holmes was released from prison last year, officials in this city offered something unusual to try to keep him alive: money. They began paying Holmes as much as $1,000 a month not to commit another gun crime.” ZeroHedge

“The only escape is a deflationary depression on a global scale the likes of which the world has never seen.” Gordon Long, Analyst

“Silver is largely a by-product of zinc and lead mining. At the moment, zinc and lead mines are closing as a result of the incredibly low prices of commodities. Because these mines are closing, they are not producing their primary by-product…silver! This is leading to declines in silver production.” Joshua Rodriguez, Analyst

“More observers than ever are recognizing the artificiality of silver’s price and how COMEX positioning is the root cause. Still yet to be widely recognized is that when the artificial silver pricing is no longer in force, the new price level will be shocking both in how high it will be and in how quickly it will occur.” Theodore Butler, Analyst

“The stock market has been desperately trying to correct for months now because even the casino regulars can read the tea leaves. That is, earnings are plunging, global trade and growth are swooning and central bank “wealth effects” pumping has not trickled down to the main street economy.” David Stockman, Economist

March 25, 2016

“The world’s central banks have collectively put more than $14 trillion into the financial system since 2008. To put that number into perspective, it’s equal to roughly 17% of global GDP. This kind of money printing is literally unheard of in modern history. And it has set the stage for a roaring wave of inflation to hit the financial system.” Graham Summers, Editor

“During strong gold bull markets, the price of gold often hits a one-to-one ratio with the Dow Jones industrial average. That means gold could surge to U.S. $8,000 an ounce or even higher. In 1980, gold was at U.S. $800 and the Dow was at 800. Do you know it’s going to go back to 1:1 – I don’t know…even if it gets to 2:1, that’s U.S. $8,000.” Pierce Lassonde, Chairman Franco-Nevada

“Today you can trade 1 ounce of gold for 80 ounces of silver. If you’re a speculator in precious metals, now may be a good time to consider trading in some gold for silver.” Simon Black, Editor

“An important reason why the state would like to see a cashless society is that it would make it easier to seize our wealth electronically.” Thomas DiLorenzo, Economist

“The tenuous and anemic state of the U.S. economy is merely held together by the tape and glue provided by the Fed’s artificially-low interest rates.” Michael Pento, Author

“It’s no secret to the precious metal community that silver is one of the most undervalued assets in the market, however 99% of mainstream investors are still in the dark.” SRSrocco, Analyst

“The world will eventually run out of silver, and it will happen soon. Roughly one billion ounces of stockpiled silver have been consumed over just the last decade alone. The numbers don’t tell us that this silver default might happen, they tell us that it will happen.” Jeff Nielson, Analys

March 21, 2016

“In what could well be a final act of desperation, central banks are abdicating effective control of the economies they have been entrusted to manage… the shift to negative rates will only compound the risks of financial instability and set the stage for the next crisis.” Stephen Roach, Asset Manager

“Does this generation that has grown up with a greater sense of entitlement and protection than any other in history really want the revolution Mr. Sanders is selling? Can they have so little sense of the past not to know that the promise of socialism – ‘democratic socialism,’ the senator would interject here – has ended up in gulags and brutal cultural upheaval?” Joseph Epstein, Author

“The largest bills of each currency account for over 2/3 of all bank notes in circulation. Hence, all the problems we think will emerge with a complete phase-out of cash would materialize by eliminating the largest bills.” Wieler and Crumb, Analysts

“Deutsche Bank, the current poster child for European banking problems is apparently having problems with its $70 trillion dollar derivative book. Because these derivatives function in a totally unregulated market, no outsider can really say with certainty what is happening with Deutsche Bank’s derivatives. But should their counterparty failures total into the trillions their failure will bring down many of their counter parties as well. Wall Street’s banks will not escape Deutsche Bank’s downfall unscathed.” Mark J. Lundeen, Editor

“The equity and bond markets have become absolute wards of central bankers and central banks cannot stop buying government debt without causing markets and economies to crash. Of course, they will eventually have to stop in order to avoid runaway inflation. That is the huge dilemma facing global central banks. And unfortunately, this means the real economic and market volatility is yet to come.” Michael Pento, Investment Advisor

“When I look at the $8 billion that’s gone into gold funds this month, you couldn’t begin to get that into silver in a year! There’s only 25 million ounces of silver on the COMEX and that’s worth only $400 million; you’d clean out the COMEX! I think only 20% of silver is available for investment, so that’s only 160 million ounces annually.” Eric Sprott, Asset Manager

“The major global economies had a staggering debt of $199 trillion as of Q2 of 2014. The most recent figures will be closer to $230 trillion because, after 2014, the ECB, Japan and China have all resorted to massive monetary easing programs while the U.S. debt continues to escalate, with every passing second.” Chris Vermeulen, Analyst

March 17, 2016

“Millions upon millions of Americans are not prepared for what is ahead, and most of them are going to get absolutely blindsided by the coming crisis.” Michael Snyder, Editor

“I don’t see anything different in the agendas of the people who call themselves progressives today and the Communists I grew up with in the Stalin era. They were for income redistribution and the coddling of criminals; their sympathies were with America’s enemies – and have remained so ever since.” David Horowitz, Author

“The sole prop under the global ‘recovery’ since 2008-09 has been private credit growth in China. From $4 trillion to over $21 trillion in seven years. In other words, the faltering global ‘recovery’ and all the tenuous asset bubbles around the world both depend on a continued hyper-velocity rocket rise in China's private credit. What are the odds of this happening?” Charles Hugh Smith, Analyst

“Civilization seems to have no concept of the peril it has created for itself.” David Haggith, Analyst

“Bear markets are a process, and our current process is still in the denial stage, but when it eventually shifts into the liquidation phase you’ll know it. Stock indexes will be down 70% or more, dividend and bond yields will be well into double digits and gold, silver and mining shares will reach prices that are unimaginable today.” Mark J. Lundeen, Editor

“The use of silver is still climbing and we're in a deficit. We're consuming around 1.1 billion ounces of silver annually. And the miners are producing about 800 million ounces. This deficit is increasing. Silver is a much rarer metal than people realize. We're consuming more silver today than we ever have. And above ground supplies are dropping substantially. I think we're going to have a huge supply squeeze in silver.” Keith Neumeyer, Mining Executive

“The political class has completely disrupted the American structure of production, made American workers uncompetitive, snuffed the life out of entrepreneurs, and burdened the entire nation with a debt obligation the size of Jupiter. The U.S. economy is not the strongest and most durable in the world – it is an unskilled thirty-two-year-old waiter crashing at his parent’s place and trying to pay down an $80,000 international relations degree.” Yonathan Amselem, Economist

“The big problem ahead will be hyperinflation, not hyper-deflation.” John Williams, Economist

“If the central bankers keep debasing, we will see multi-thousand-dollar levels for the price of gold.” Fred Hickey, Editor

“It’s not just the U.S. markets that are screaming recession. Indeed, equity market havoc is evident in North America, South America, Europe and Asia.” Michael Pento, Editor

“Harvard economist Larry Summers is a reliable source of claptrap. ‘It’s time to kill the $100 bill,’ he wrote in the Washington Post (another reliable source of claptrap).” Bill Bonner, Editor

“There is one reason alone for the sudden campaign to abolish large denomination bills. It is a necessary predicate for the imposition of NIRP. That is to say, it would pave the way for central bank-mandated confiscation of the wealth and savings of millions of American citizens in the pursuit of a cockamamie theory that would bring about the final destruction of honest price discovery and financial discipline in the Wall Street casino.” Michael Pento, Economist

“The marketplace is a crime and punishment world, and this Federal Reserve credit expansion is the greatest monetary crime of all time. Accordingly the punishment will be far and away the greatest punishment of all time.” John Exter, Economist

“It costs 1.7 cents to make a penny and 8 cents to make a nickel, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The U.S. government loses tens of millions of dollars every year putting these coins into circulation. Why is it wasting money and time making coins almost no one uses? Because phasing out the penny and nickel would mean acknowledging currency debasement. And governments never like to do that. It would reveal their incompetence and theft from savers.” Nick Giambruno, Analyst

“Can you imagine a world where commercial banks pay their customers to borrow money? Sure, scoff now. But mark my words. Central banks are so desperate to kick start the economy and credit creation, they will do almost anything. So, if they have to bribe you to borrow money to start acquiring more things, then that’s exactly what they’ll do.” Robert Romano, Analyst

“China's Subprime Crisis Is Here: The dynamic is clear. A splurge of new lending can help to dilute existing bad loans, but only at a cost. This is a game that can't continue forever, particularly if credit is being foisted onto an already over-leveraged and slowing economy. At some point, the music will stop and there will have to be a reckoning. The longer China postpones that, the harder it will be.” Mark G., Correspondent

“No cause, ever, in the history of all mankind, has produced more cold-blooded tyrants, more slaughtered innocents, and more orphans than socialism with power. It surpassed exponentially all other systems of production in turning out the dead. The bodies are all around us. Until socialism is confronted with its lived reality, the greatest of atrocities of all recorded human life, we will not live ‘after socialism.’” Alan Charles Kors, Historian

March 10, 2016

“I’m convinced we’re in the early phase of a massive bear market. There’s no way to say how far the Dow Jones could fall. But knowing how poorly the ‘policy makers’ have managed the economy and financial markets over the past three decades, my expectations are for a market decline of similar proportions to that of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The one thing I feel confident about is that this is not a time to be a buyer of what Wall Street is selling to the public. This is a time to get out, take your money with you and not come back to the market for a few years. Buy some gold and silver bullion. As the market becomes painfully aware of counterparty failure, you’ll be glad you did.” Mark J. Lundeen, Analyst

“If you want to know where equities are going, look at the spread in yield between junk bonds and Treasuries. That spread has been widening sharply. And look at the Expected Default Frequency (IF), a measure of the probability that a company will default over the next 12 months. It has been soaring. Junk bonds will sink stocks.” Wolf Richter, Editor

“The fact that the policies recommended by Keynesians and monetarists, i.e., deficit spending and money printing, routinely fail to bring about the desired results is not seen as proof that they simply don’t work. It is regarded as evidence that there hasn’t beenenoughspending and printing yet.” Pater Tenebrarum, Editor

“The utter fools running Japan Inc. have become so befuddled by Keynesian groupthink that they are self-inducing a monetary Hiroshima on their entire economy and society.” David Stockman, Economist

“The admission that the economy is so weak that it needs more QE is going to destroy the narrative that the U.S. economy is in great shape and it’s no longer going to be the safe haven for capital around the world…it’s going to prick the bubble in the dollar…and people are going to realize that we’ve never recovered from anything, the economy is sicker than ever, the Fed’s going to make it even sicker with more of its toxic monetary policy, the dollar’s going to tank and the price of gold is going to skyrocket – and people need to prepare for that now.” Peter Schiff, Author

“It would be a lot easier to be bullish today if the entire financial system wasn’t based on fraud and B.S.” Graham Summers, Editor

March 3, 2016

“I have always said that if inflating asset prices via loose monetary policy were the route to economic prosperity, Argentina would be the richest country in the world by now, and it’s not.” Albert Edwards, Analyst SocGen

“Morgan Stanley has said oil could fall to $20 a barrel, while Standard Chartered has predicted an even bigger slide, to as low as $10. Standard said: ‘Given that no fundamental relationship is currently driving the oil market towards any equilibrium, prices are being moved almost entirely by financial flows caused by fluctuations in other asset prices, including the U.S. dollar and equity markets. We think prices could fall as low as $10 a barrel before most of the money managers in the market concede that matters have gone too far.’” Nick Fletcher, Editor

“Asia is the manufacturing hub of the world. If China devalues, all the other countries in the region will follow suit in order not to jeopardize their competiveness. Consequently, export goods from Asia will become significantly cheaper, which will lead to price pressures which will also affect Western competitors. They in turn will also be forced to lower the prices of their products, which will hurt earnings. A devaluation of the yuan will lead to a global deflationary shock.” Felix Zulauf, Asset Manager

“Sell everything except high quality bonds. This is about return of capital, not return on capital. In a crowded hall, exit doors are small.” RBS Economists

“Rig for stormy weather, expect surprises, markets regressing to the mean, pricing mechanisms failing, political systems collapsing, and Middle East politics exploding. There will be blood and trauma. Do not trust the supposed value of paper assets and find security in real assets such as silver and gold bars and coins stored outside the financial system.” Gary Christenson, Editor

“The days of blaming China for a contraction of world trade are over: the downturn is now far larger and more widespread. Decades of accumulated market distortions appear to be on the brink of a great unwind, most of which can be blamed on expansionary monetary policies.” Alasdair Macleod

“Everything continues to suggest that the economic recovery is in the process of screeching to a halt.” Pater Tenebrarum, Analyst

“In the current environment, oversold conditions are prone to becoming even more deeply oversold, not only because internals are weak, but because the economic evidence is quickly confirming an oncoming recession that remains almost universally denied by market participants.” John Hussman, Analyst

“The next financial crisis is not coming. The next financial crisis is already here. An angry bear has been released after nearly seven years in hibernation, and the entire world is going to be absolutely shocked by what happens next.” Michael Snyder, Editor

“Was this whole exercise with zero rates and purchases of trillions of dollars’ worth of Treasury and agency securities simply a delaying tactic to avoid deflation and debt liquidation? The FOMC says that QE and ZIRP are all about restoring jobs and growth, but when you examine the situation carefully, it seems hard to avoid the conclusion that the Fed's actions were really about managing a world that is drowning in a sea of uncollectible debt.” Christopher Whalen, Managing Director

“Austrian Business Cycle Theory tells us that the depth of the bust will be proportional to the boom. Since we just witnessed a tripling of stock prices over a 6 year period, we expect the ensuing bust to be historic. As Austrians, we also know to look for areas of malinvestment on the short side, typically long-term grandiose projects (like record high skyscrapers in China) or consumer goods where long-term financing is offered (such as 7 year auto loans).” Bill Laggner and Kevin Duffy, Fund Managers

“China has set off a major correction and it is going to snowball. Equities and credit have become very dangerous.” Andrew Roberts, RBS Credit Chief

“Ben Bernanke famously told the world in July 2005 that there wouldn’t be a nationwide decline in home prices in the United States.” Simon Black, Editor

“Yes, the bull market came to an end last spring. A new bear market has begun. The coming downturn will be proportional to the excesses that were built up during the boom years.The bull market lasted for a very long time and was primarily fueled by monetary excesses. And these excesses will now be corrected. And bear in mind, there is no longer any backstop for markets.” Felix Zulauf, Asset Manager

“Hard to believe, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average could fall by another 1,000 to 5,000 points and still not be ‘cheap’ compared with long-term stock-valuation measures.” Brett Arends, Analyst

February 4, 2016

“The most important outbreak or story of 2015 had to have been the junk bond reversal.” Jeffrey Snider, Asset Manager

“The Fraser Institute says that in 2015, Canadians waited an average of 18 weeks to see a specialist.” Investor’s Business Daily

“The statistics on student-loan default rates are indeed mindboggling. The ineptitude of the government to manage the student-loan program again demonstrates clearly why socialism doesn’t work.” Ralph Tibiletti, Writer

“No one knows how the global markets will react to the collapsing economy in China. This is a major risk factor as there are no concrete actions that can be implemented to avoid this deteriorating situation.” Chris Vermeulen, Analyst

“More than ever, considering the shocking facts of how little actual silver exists in the world in dollar terms, there is no way the price cannot exceed true free-market equilibrium levels. Instead the price will rip up through those equilibrium levels as if they don’t exist. Knowing that is coming provides me with the patience and stamina to wait this out.” Theodore Butler, Analyst

“The day is coming when the world will once again realize why gold and silver are ‘precious metals,’ because unlike units of currency managed by central banks, gold and silver truly are rare.” Mark J. Lundeen, Analyst

“We believe the Credit Cycle has turned and with it will come some massive unexpected shocks. One of these will be the fall out in the Bond Market, centered around the dramatic growth explosion in Bond ETFs coupled with the post financial crisis regulatory changes that effectively removed banks from making markets in corporate bonds. It is a ‘Witch’s Brew’ with a flattening yield curve bringing it to a boil.” Gordon T. Long, Analyst

“There’s really one supreme element that you must keep in view at all times:a society based on debt that will never be paid back is certain to crack up. Its institutions will stop functioning. Its business activities will seize up. Its leaders will be demoralized. Its denizens will act up and act out. Its wealth will evaporate.” Howard Kunstler, Editor

“The U.S. financial markets, particularly equities and low-grade debt, are in a late-stage top formation of the third speculative bubble in 15 years. Current extremes imply 40-55% market losses over the completion of the current market cycle, with negative real total returns for the S&P 500 on a 10-12 year horizon. These are not worst-case scenarios, but run-of-the-mill expectations.” John P. Hussman, Fund Manager

“From a historical perspective, the emerging economies seem to be headed toward a major crisis.” Carmen Reinhart, Economist

“The big question around Asia is whether China can navigate its way out of the blind alley it’s trapped in: a banking system steeped in crony corruption, bad debt, and malinvestment like unto nothing the world has ever seen before.” Howard Kunstler, Editor

“A credit report for a Chinese company is not worth the paper it’s written on.” Violet Ho, Managing Director

“If you needed evidence of just how precarious things truly are, look no further than a recent report from Macquarie which showed that a quarter of Chinese firms with debt are currently unable to cover their annual interest expense.” ZeroHedge

“The real issue in China is not simply that profits have peaked. The real issue is the size of their banking system. In China, in dollar terms their banking system is almost $35 trillion against a GDP of $10 and their banking system has grown 400% in 8 years with non-performing loans being nonexistent. So what we are going to see next is a credit cycle, and in a credit cycle you see some losses, but if China's banking system loses 10%, you are going to see them lose $3.5 trillion.” Kyle Bass, Asset Manager

“China is confronting a massive debt problem, the scale of which the world has never seen.” Charlene Chu, Ratings Expert

“The focus on China as if their problems were only Chinese is highly misplaced.” Jeffrey Snider, Asset Manager

“The Chinese government has some ammunition left, but not that much considering losses already present in the economy.” Albert Gallo, Analyst

“The Beijing regime is going to take steps to defend itself, or at least insulate itself, from the growing narrative that they are incompetent. Heads will roll. Literally, in all likelihood. But the incompetence genie is very hard to stuff back into the bottle, and depending on whose head is on the chopping block, regime stability can deteriorate very quickly. Now that's what will make me change my bullish stance on China fundamentals, and that's what will make the U.S. market swoon of last August look like a gentle spring rain.” Ben Hunt, Analyst

January 27, 2016

“The end of the ZIRP era is very bearish for today’s super-overvalued stock market.” Adam Hamilton, Editor

“The universities of this country have become a laughingstock. They have degenerated into anti-intellectual, anti-Western, anti-rational institutions with their ludicrous ‘safe spaces,’ trigger warnings that infantilize students, and all the lies about racism and a rape culture that allegedly pervade the campuses and American society.” Dennis Prager, Editor

“A perfect example of something completely out of whack, but melded into the new ‘normal,’ are negative interest rates throughout much of the world. These negative interest rates are no longer for only short dated maturities. Rates are negative in some cases out past 7-10 years! How can this possibly be? Investors are willing to lock in a guaranteed loss for 10 years or more?” Aubie Baltin, Editor

“Free-market commerce is the only system of human organization yet devised where ordinary people are in charge – unlike feudalism, communism, fascism, slavery and socialism.” Matt Ridley. Author

“The markets are not remotely prepared for the deflationary recession that is now engulfing the world economy. As the signs of global deflation and recession become increasingly frequent and obvious, the casino gamblers will come to realize that the fed is out of dry powder. It will be powerless in the face of the coming downturn. Central banks are pushing on a string.” David Stockman, Economist

“What did the CFTC do after being presented with this proof of futures trading corruption in the gold and silver markets? It did nothing. Well, technically, it “probed” the silver market for five years (or so it claimed). And after studying the most corrupt market in the history of human commerce for five years, it proclaimed that it had found nothing. Absolute corruption.” Jeff Nielson, Analyst

“The Fed’s flood of cheap credit has not boosted productivity, it’s only boosted speculation. Why is this fatal? Productivity is the engine of wealth creation. Speculation is the engine of wealth inequality and devastating boom/bust cycles.” Charles Hugh-Smith, Analyst

“Total U.S. public and private debt levels have climbed to the staggering level of 327% of GDP, which is nearly 600% of Federal tax revenue. Therefore, humongous debt levels and massive capital imbalances have set up the stock market for its third major collapse since the year 2000. Investors should proceed with extreme caution now that the warning signs have been blatantly explained.” Michael Pento, Editor

“If you can afford to lose 50% of your retirement savings, now is the time to buy some Facebook, Netflix, Google, or Amazon on margin.” Jim Quinn, Editor

“I view the stock market as being in the late-phase of an extremely overvalued top formation that will likely be followed by profound losses over the completion of this market cycle, and the U.S. economy as being on the cusp of a new recession.” John Hussman, Editor

“There is a Category 5 deflationary hurricane forming off the Chinese coast as Beijing accelerates the devaluation of the Yuan against the dollar under the guise of ‘reform.’” Ben Hunt, Analyst

“Wall Street has a new hobby use good money to create the illusion that all is well; only unlike most hobbies, the intent is to distort reality and reward lazy insiders for doing next to nothing. Gone are the days of actually trying to improve the bottom line, by improving efficiency, find new markets, etc. Now the idea is simply cut the supply of outstanding shares, thereby magically boosting the EPS. Why are executives doing this with such impunity? The ‘safe harbor’ rule passed in 1982, essentially allows corporations to repurchase shares without having to face charges of manipulating the price of their shares.” Sol Palha, Editor

“The Fed’s drastic spree of so-called extraordinary policies - zero interest rates (ZIRP) and quantitative easing (QE) - have backfired. They inflated the Wall Street casino and crushed honest savers and retirees. They’ve also left the Main Street economy stranded in the weakest recovery since World War II.” David Stockman, Economist

“Some thought the IRS would be punished after harassing conservative organizations. Instead the tax man gets the new power of revoking your passport.” Investor’s Business Daily

“The silver market and industry are experiencing serious changes, and it’s only a matter of time before investors realize it is one of the most undervalued assets in the world.” Steve St. Angelo, Analyst

“You will often hear people say that free markets have been discredited, as they sip cups of coffee while sitting on chairs, wearing clothes and checking text messages – each of which was supplied by hundreds, thousands of producers whose beautifully coordinated collaboration was unplanned but achieved by ‘market forces.’” Matt Ridley, Author

“Richer and more urban people , contrary to what the magazines of opinion sometimes suggest, are less materialistic, less violent, less superficial than poor people.” Deirdre McCloskey, Author

January 7, 2016

ldquo;In an era of stagnant household incomes, every additional dollar devoted to rising healthcare insurance, outrageously unaffordable medications and soaring co-pays is one less dollar that's available to be saved, invested or spent on something other than healthcare. Rising healthcare costs are tightly correlated with recessions; as healthcare expenses consume more oxygen, the rest of the economy starts gasping for air.” Charles Hugh-Smith, Editor

“Margin debt is now 11% off its peak, a strong warning sign. Margin debt always begins to decline a few months before the market peaks.” Pater Tenebrarum, Analyst

“In Europe, Asia, and America, central bankers, we are told, have the situation in hand. But these policies – in fact all central bank policies for the last 30 years – are either a mistake or flimflam.” Bill Bonner, Publisher

“The arguments for progressive taxation range from the feeble to the sinister. The case for it is not uneasy; it is nonexistent.” George Will, Editor

“QE has distorted the prices of all financial assets, fueled growing social inequality, and enriched many within the financial sector at the expense of everyone else.” Tim Price, Editor

“The simple truth is all currencies, bonds and equities have all been so massively manipulated by the heavy hand of governments that there is now no easy escape.” Michael Pento, Analyst

“This current ‘recovery,’ engineered by the largest monetary experiment in history, that has left us with trillions of dollars of new debt that we will likely never be able to repay, is quickly running out of what little steam it had.” Peter Schiff, Author

“The end of capitalism will be due to the unbelievable amount of debt that is currently being created. This will create monster inflation that will destroy every currency. The only currency that cannot be destroyed is gold. When investors realize this, we’ll have the makings of the greatest bull market in gold ever seen.” Richard Russell, (1924-2015)

“Silver will follow gold’s upward climb and the gold/silver exchange ratio will compress in the future. It will go from the current high of 75:1 to potentially as low as 16:1.” Rob McEwen, Mining Executive.

“Junk bonds are the canary in the coal mine for stocks. When credit tightens, the dynamics change for much of corporate America. Financial engineering gets more expensive and fizzles. M&A gets more difficult to pull off. Bond-funded dividends and share buybacks get cut or come to a halt. Defaults wipe out shareholders. Suddenly, risk shows up on the scene. And eventually, stocks start chasing junk bonds lower.” Wolf Richter, Editor